illphated
A Hundred Feet High”
By Illphated | illphated.com
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The bleacher creaked beneath Illphated’s weight, a lonely perch suspended a hundred feet above the neon skeleton of the city. His legs dangled freely, sneakers catching the occasional draft from the wind tunnels between monolithic towers far below. In front of him, a thick sheet of plexiglass stood like the last barrier between wonder and vertigo. Smudged with streaks of rain and light, it distorted the pulse of the city’s heartbeat into a dreamlike smear of color.
He wasn’t here for the event. There was no crowd, no cheer, no scoreboard. The stadium down below was dark—abandoned or forgotten. Maybe both.
He was here for the height.
From up here, the city looked… fragile. Streets like veins, flickering. Buildings like data towers in a long-forgotten server. Somewhere in the static of it all, a memory replayed like a broken loop.
A voice.
A decision.
A goodbye.
Illphated leaned forward, face inches from the plexiglass. A rush of cold hit him through the gaps in the panel’s frame. It was secure, but not comforting. The thought of falling wasn’t frightening in the traditional sense—it was curious. What would it feel like to be free of everything, even for a few glorious seconds?
He pulled out a cigarette, unlit, and twirled it between his fingers. He didn’t smoke. Not anymore. Not since her.
Beneath the bench, the scaffolding disappeared into the night like it was floating in void. The platform had no access stairs. No elevator. Just a long-forgotten maintenance drone that dropped him off when he asked for “a quiet place to think.”
The city buzzed below, uncaring, unaware. Somewhere across that glass and distance, people laughed, fought, lived. But up here—Illphated watched.
He wasn’t above them. Just apart.
A stray reflection flickered in the plex. A ghost of a coyote. A roadrunner. A hare. Then gone.
He exhaled slowly and whispered to the nothing:
“Maybe tomorrow I’ll come back down.”
But not tonight.
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Filed under: Vaporwave Moments, Cyberpunk Solitude, Urban Myths of Illphated
Tagged: isolation, neon city, philosophical fiction, illphated sightings
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